


Counting Down the Seconds

by Qpenguin98



Series: Better to love than to have and to hold [4]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Amnesty, Cuddling & Snuggling, Exhaustion, Headaches & Migraines, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, TAZ Amnesty, fatigue, just general unhealthyness you kno?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-08-01 22:34:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16293101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Qpenguin98/pseuds/Qpenguin98
Summary: Indrid Cold has never been the healthiest Sylph. He’s twig thin and he’s cold all the time and sometimes he gets so tired he can’t move and his head will throb behind his eyes until he wants to throw up, but it’s fine.





	Counting Down the Seconds

 

Indrid Cold has never been the healthiest Sylph. He’s twig thin and he’s cold all the time and sometimes he gets so tired he can’t move and his head will throb behind his eyes until he wants to throw up, but it’s fine. It’s what he knows. And on Sylvain it isn’t too big of an issue, he was never called to the court meetings too often and he could curl up in his warm, silent room and ride out the worst of everything under blankets and pillows.

But he’s not on Sylvain, and it’s not like he doesn’t do anything either. He’s at the Amnesty Lodge, courtesy of a too kind woman who opened her business up for a bunch of aliens to stay in even after she found out what they were. He acts as their seer, or future teller, or just as a cautionary person. He gets so many split realities in front of him. It’s hard to tell until late which one will come to pass. It’s helpful with the abominations, terrible things that tear up Kepler and the people in it. Everyone here is too friendly for their own good, and he doesn’t want to see them or anyone in the Lodge torn up.

The Lodge is nice, yes, but it runs cold. Winter air seeps through the cracks in the walls so easily, and it’s never exactly quiet, what with all the Sylphs living there and the kid they all kind of take care of. There’s always some sort of noise, something grating at his ears. Usually he can tune it out, but sometimes it just pounds at his skull, a tiny hammer chipping away at his tolerance.

Today is a bad day. Everything feels heightened, his vision, his hearing, the cold soaking into his bones constantly. He tries to get up and be a grown up, but it’s hard, body slumping back into the pillows. He’s dehydrated, probably. Definitely exhausted. His body aches and his head just throbs, feeling like it’s swelling and pressing to his eyes to hard. He’s chilled and the heavy pile of blankets on top of him does nothing to help.

Indrid lies there and whines into his pillow, hearing the noise in his head before and while he does it in the real world, the sensation slamming into him. Alright. Noise is bad. Keep that in mind.

He rolls over to try and get comfortable, hands clenching at nothing. There’s nothing he can do but ride it out, wishing he couldn’t see and hear what was happening all around him in perfect clarity from the entirety of the Lodge.

The blinds are pulled tight, which is a small blessing. A reprieve of what could be. He doesn’t know that he could handle any light right now, searing away and his sensitive retinas. He’s not in his human form, the glasses digging into his face when he lays down in them. His eyes feel more sensitive to light in his Sylph form, soaking in all that it can.

It’s a long while until someone tries to be social. Barclay comes up the steps and creaks the door open slowly. Indrid scrunches his eyes shut against the onslaught of light, whimpering again into the pillowcase. Barclay pauses before shutting the door quickly, the creak of the hinges screaming into his brain.

“Hey,” he says, and all of the visions and present of him saying it layer in his head. “I brought you some **water. It felt like a bad day**.”

He says it with him and hears it four time repeated to him and almost vomits. He hums in response.

“Indrid?” Barclay sets the water down and sits on the edge of the bed. “How bad of a day?”

“Bad,” he mumbles, trying to keep everything level. “’s bad B’rclay.”

“Shh,” he says soothingly, quietly. “Drink the water. I also brought tea just in case.”

He rolls back over and holds out a shaky hand, feeling the cold ceramic of the mug of water chill him even more. He sips at it with closed eyes, trying not to spill on himself. No pain medication, their human meds never really work on him. He just has to suffer through it. He can do it, he has before.

The mug slams back onto the table much louder than he’d meant and he sucks in a breath, scrunching his eyes tight. He wraps a hand around Barclay’s wrist and he stands, pulling the covers back and climbing in with him.

“Wh… what? You’ve got stuff to do, you’ve got a lodge to feed.”

“It’s fine,” he says in a soothing voice. “I wanna make sure you’re alright.”

“Nothing I haven’t dealt with before,” he mutters into the dark. “Been trying to look forward too far too recently.”

“Still,” Barclay says, and he sounds more worried than he should. “You’re hurting, bad, **and there’s nothing I can do for you**.”

“C’mere,” He sighs out, wrapping his arms around him. Barclay’s right about not being able to do anything about the pain, but he can do something about the cold. All he needs to do is exist. Barclay complies easily, letting Indrid manhandle him any way he sees fit. He ends up wrapped around him, clutching him with his arms and legs, in an attempt to get warm.

A noise happens from down stairs, loud and grating, and he lets out that pathetic sounding whine again. One of Barclay’s hands fits onto his head, brushing back overtop his skull gently. The other presses to his back, rubbing comforting and soothing circles into the thin thin skin.

“’m sorry,” Indrid says to the dark, knowing what he’ll say next.

“ **What for**?"

“This,” he mumbles. ‘You never agreed to take care of me every few days when my body decides I’ve had enough of everything.”

“Indrid,” he says quietly, feeling full in his head. “Indrid I love you. I’m not dealing with you. This is a part of it. I take care of you and you take care of me, which you do. You don’t have to apologize for something out of your control.”

“But it’s my headaches and I overwork myself into them.”

“But you don’t control your body’s reaction to things.” Barclay sounds firmer and it’s almost too loud, the comforting hands and arms wrapped around his body soothing the blow a bit.

“Wish it wasn’t like this.”

“Indrid,” Barclay says, and then he doesn’t say anything again for a while. His hands card through the fuzz on his body, bringing him down to something manageable, something he can fall asleep with. “Indrid, we gotta talk about that later, but right now, just focus on my voice. You don’t have to wonder what it means, because it’s the feeling we’re looking for, just the feeling.”

He nods and regrets it, burying his face into Barclay’s chest. He holds him impossibly closer and then he starts singing.

It’s not a song he knows, and certainly not on in a language he knows. The words don’t make sense, but they don’t have to. He can just feel and be wanted and accept that.

The combination of all of it lulls him down into a hazy state. Not asleep but definitely not awake. He’s content to stay there, most of his pain gone. Barclay is still there, humming other songs in languages he doesn’t know.

The migraine pulses in his head sometimes, but for the most part it’s been shut down. He’s still chilled, but wherever he’s touching Barclay he’s warm. Nothing’s too overwhelming, and he’s grateful to the haze for keeping him unaware of most of it.

The haze turns into full dreaming eventually, easily morphing with the gentleness of Barclay and the tiredness in his bones. His headache is all but gone, and every point of contact is searing. Barclay’s still singing when he drops into slumber, alternating between humming and actually making words, not that he can understand them.

He can deal with whatever serious conversation he wants to have later. But for now, he’s content to sleep off the unpleasantness of the day and restart fresh tomorrow.

**Author's Note:**

> lmao this is probs bad but im like real sleepy rn and wrote this in 45 minutes  
> its so short but i wanted it down so here we goooo  
> please comment!


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